Amsterdam - the land of Tulips and Canals

Our second full day we had originally planned a bus trip out to the city of Bruges. After thinking about the 7 hours in a chartered bus, we changed our plans. The word for the beginning of the day was adaptive. We used our newly mastered navigation skills to take a metro to the South train station (Zuid), a train to the Airport and a bus to Kuekenhof Gardens in the town of Lisse. 

Lisse is in the heart of the tulip growing region and Kuekenhof is the location of the Tulip Festival. When initially designed the thought was to create a garden of all spring flowers with tulips being the dominate flower.  Every year from late March to early May, Kuekenhof is transformed to host this festival as it bursts into a mesmerizing display of color and patterns.  Imagine over 7 million tulip bulbs planted across 80 acres. Surrounding the Kuekenhof are hundreds of acres of tulip farms and tulips that are still commercial farms. Sites to behold. Tulips of all shapes, sizes, varieties and colors, many, only to be found in Holland.  We never imagined the extent of the varieties. It totally exceeded our expectations and blew us away. 

 That field behind us is all tulips!

When you are surrounded by this many beautiful flowers, the pictures cannot begin to do justice. The word of the day is vibrant.

That evening we took a tour of the Amsterdam canals on a canal boat. Amsterdam was historically a focal point of the trading world with the Dutch East India Trading Company at its core. For almost 200 years, this company ruled the trading industry. The old buildings in the heart of Amsterdam served as its warehouses. The larger ships would come up the river and unload the spices and other goods into smaller boats that would move the goods through the system of canals to the warehouses. A system of over 172 canals were dug by hand. Some of the facts we learned along the way:

.. Amsterdam derived its name when some fisherman dammed up the bottom of the Amstel River and the site was known thereafter as Amsterdam;

.. The warehouses were built with upper floors hanging over the water and a system of ropes and pulleys to lift goods from the boats into the upper levels of the warehouse. The lower levels tended to flood, thus the need to store above the flooded first floors;

.. Amsterdam was bombed heavily during WWII. After the war there was a shortage of housing and the City Counsel approved anyone having a boat living in their boat on the canal. Interestingly it wasn’t until the 70’s that they were required to be tied to the city’s sewer system.

That's Captain Bob, making sure we get through the canals safely. It does get tight.

Notice that some of the buildings are built to lean toward the water. This was to make the lifting of goods to upper floors easier.

Houseboats have taken many meanings including this old sailboat.

Our two gracious guides on the boat Kirsi and Eva.

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